At the forefront is the impact of tiered service on small businesses. Internet-based commerce is a rather egalitarian field right now, where people who offer the best products and services get the most business, even if they’re just a small business. Since they have the same access speed as everyone else, they’re able to compete handily with the big boys. Tiered service will cripple small Internet businesses. Like to play video games online? Forget it, unless you pay for faster service, and then there’s no guarantee the server you’re connecting to can be any faster.

The telecoms will profit, though, and make more money, largely at the expense of small businesses, bloggers, small political groups like this one, etc. etc. I could go on and on, but it’s striking that none of this already occurred to you, Peter. You know as well as anyone else that small businesses drive our economy.

But then, we already know that the major telecoms have sent you guys a bunch of checks. Don’t suppose you’d like to disclose how much money you’ve gotten from the telecoms in the past years, would you?